The Studio of Ingres 1947

Victor Pasmore made “The Studio of Ingres” using oil on canvas, though the date remains unknown. Born in 1908, Pasmore came of age during the interwar period, a time marked by profound social and cultural shifts. He positions a nude woman in a bedroom setting, adjacent to a book titled "The Studio of Ingres". Ingres, a 19th-century Neoclassical painter, was known for his idealized and often eroticized depictions of the female form. But here Pasmore references Ingres, but he disrupts traditional representations through the lens of modernism. There's a palpable tension between homage and critique, tradition and innovation. The woman is presented without the idealized perfection typical of Ingres' nudes. Pasmore seems to be asking questions about the male gaze, the representation of women in art, and the artist's role in perpetuating or subverting these norms. What does it mean to represent the human body, and whose gaze are we catering to when we do so?